As it celebrates its half century, the brutalist landmark on London’s South Bank still provokes and delights
Jan-Werner Müller’s new book explores the question of how we might design truly democratic spaces, but perhaps the answer lies in our own behaviour
Gordon Cullen’s drawings for Townscape, his guide to urban planning, lend the subject a beguiling romanticism
Modernists regarded the Scandinavian style as a mere throwback, but it was much more radical than it was given credit for
For a brief period before the First World War, oblique angles and angular planes were all the rage in Prague
Designed by the architect shortly before his death 300 years ago, a ‘chamber pew’ in St George’s Church in Esher, Surrey, is a thoroughly charming anomaly
Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach’s Villa Beer was used by British intelligence after the Second World War – and is now open to general inspection
Will Wiles applauds the witty cartoons of Alan Dunn, a keen observer of architectural modishness
Dreamed up by the architect Clough Williams-Ellis in the 1920s, the Italianate village on the north Wales coast is still a delightful lesson in how to take frivolity in design seriously
László Hudec’s striking contributions to the skyline added Hungarian modernism to the influences that made the interwar city such a cosmopolitan hub
Antonio Gaudi’s masterpiece is nearing completion a century after the architect’s death
The History Faculty Building in Cambridge, completed in 1968, is hard to love. But love it Will Wiles, a former student, does
Though the architect himself is a controversial figure, his commercial interiors are the epitome of the emerging modern metropolis
Heavily influenced by his artistic contemporaries, the architect pushed the limits of design – and revolutionised the idea of the modern museum
The dissolution of certainties about American power now has its perfect visual emblem – in the form of bulldozers reducing part of the White House to rubble
Hostels or hospitals for the old and vulnerable were first established in the Middle Ages, but as a thoughtful new London scheme shows, they still play an important role in society
It is a century since most of Sir John Soane’s structure was demolished to make way for Herbert Baker’s bigger but more boring vision
By turns picturesque and insalubrious, mews houses have a compellingly chequered past
Eero Saarinen's US embassy building in Mayfair has long been undervalued, but its conversion into a luxury hotel may help revive its reputation
The Irish castle owned by the Dukes of Devonshire has had its fair share of vicissitudes, from sieges to extensive redecorations
The Gothic Revival masterpieces designed by Alexander Jackson Davis were sought after by some of the most successful Americans of the day
This magazine’s first home, the Adelphi was both a neoclassical triumph and a financial disaster for ‘Bob the Roman’
The distinctive London cinemas designed by George Coles in the 1930s were like Hawksmoor churches for the celluloid age
Dimitris Pikionis’s work around the ancient monument is one of the most enduring contributions to 20th-century architecture – and one of the most self-effacing
